


Steady Hands and a Healer's Braid

by jenaimepastoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dumbledore's Army, Gen, Healing, Many other characters - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 21:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenaimepastoi/pseuds/jenaimepastoi
Summary: Maisie's mother says that the first rule of healing is "do no harm". Maisie Runcorn likes to think that she'll make a good healer one day; she has her mother's example and connections, an internship with Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing, and steady healer's hands. Her sister Laney, on the other hand, is small and soft and breaks easily, her bones as fragile as a bird's.





	Steady Hands and a Healer's Braid

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the final project of my university class Harry Potter and Philosophy. Please comment!

Maisie Runcorn closes the compartment door softly behind her. Inside, her little sister Laney, only a first year, chats happily with Maisie’s fellow Ravenclaws, Lisa Turpin and Isobel MacDougal, as Eddie Carmichael and Mandy Brocklehurst coo over Laney’s snow-white kitten, Pistachio.

In the corridor, Maisie nearly runs into Michael Corner, her fellow Ravenclaw prefect. They exchange friendly nods before heading off to the prefects’ compartment together. 

They’re nearly there when suddenly the train shudders, lights flickering. Maisie braces herself against the wall of the corridor and grabs Michael by the robes to keep him from hitting the floor. 

“Thanks,” he says breathlessly as the train stops.

Maisie remembers the one other time the Hogwarts Express stopped before reaching its destination. In her third year, dementors stopped the train to check for escaped criminal Sirius Black. Surely, with the Ministry under the Dark Lord’s control, the dementors have no reason to search the train for escaped Death Eaters?

As Maisie and Michael hover uncertainly in the corridor, the outside doors of the compartment swing open. Someone huffs as they climb in. It’s not a dementor.

It’s a Death Eater, masked and robed. Michael starts to draw his wand, but Maisie grabs his arm and reaches blindly behind them to open the compartment they’re huddled against. Before she can reach the knob, the door jerks open suddenly and several hands yank her and Michael inside the compartment before slamming the door shut.

Maisie allows herself to be plonked down by the window and blinks around. In the compartment are Longbottom, Looney Lovegood, the Weasley girl, and a few Gryffindors she doesn’t know. Maisie glances out the compartment door. The Death Eaters are moving along the corridor, peering into compartments. One opens their door and stares inside.

Longbottom stands, his face pale but his mouth set in a grim line.

“He’s not here,” he says, looking every inch the Gryffindor with his shoulders set and his wand clutched in a shaking hand. “He’s not coming.”

The Death Eater stares a moment more before leaving. Longbottom reaches forward and closes the door before sitting back down and letting out a shaky breath.

Michael continues to look into the corridor worriedly. A child’s scream, coming from another car, makes them all startle. Weasley and Longbottom jump to their feet.

“What’s happening?” Weasley says.

Lovegood curls her knees into her chest and presses her face into them, arms curled around herself like a shield.

“They must have the list,” she murmurs, loud in the silent compartment. “Of first-years.”

“So?” says Michael, but Maisie understands immediately. She presses her hands to her mouth, hard, as Lovegood says,

“They’re after the Muggle-borns.”  
________________________________________________________________________________

“Hufflepuff!” cries the hat atop Laney’s frizzy head.

Fear squeezes Maisie’s chest like a vice. How can Maisie protect her little sister if they’re not in the same House? Across the Great Hall, Laney sends a troubled look her sister’s way before hopping off the stool and handing the Sorting Hat to McGonagall. She meekly walks to her house’s table like all the other first-years, and no one cheers. The whole Sorting, no one has cheered.

Anger consumes the fear in Maisie’s chest, and she clenches her fists under the table where no one can see. The Sorting should be a time of celebration. Laney should be bouncing and grinning, not shuffling with her eyes on her feet, trying to avoid particular notice. It’s supposed to be a good thing, to come to Hogwarts. Maisie shouldn’t have to wish Laney was a few years younger, or a Squib, even, just so she would be safe.

Someone elbows Maisie lightly, and she glances sideways to see Michael Corner peering at her with concern. He leans in, eyes back on the high table. Maisie tilts her head to catch his words.

“I’ll make sure Hannah and the others look out for her,” he murmurs. Maisie frowns. She hadn’t realized Michael knew Hannah Abbott that well. Ravenclaws did their patrols as prefects together, after all, and she’d never seen him hanging about with Hufflepuffs. Maisie doesn’t know what to make of his offer. She and Michael aren’t particular friends; their groups of Ravenclaws don’t really mix. But then, she realizes as she glances furtively at ‘her’ Ravenclaws around her, no one else seems to have noticed Maisie’s distress, let alone offered to help.

Maisie’s family is pureblood and of good standing. Her father, Albert Runcorn, got a promotion when Thicknesse became Minister of Magic over the summer. He won’t tell Maisie what it is he does now, but he made it clear that he thinks his status will protect them somewhat. When the Dark Lord returned, he told the sisters that they were not to explicitly join either side, but to quietly endear themselves to both if they could. He always pays his debts, her father, and he expects others to do the same.

If Maisie accepts Michael’s help, and that of Hannah Abbott and the ‘others’, too, she supposes, then she will be in debt to them. She might even be taking a side; which one, she doesn’t know yet. It’s exactly what her father would tell her not to do.

But while Maisie remembers her father’s orders, she also remembers the masks of the Death Eaters on the train, the cries of the children they carried off to who knows where. The way Michael tried to draw his wand against that first Death Eater, and the way her father stares silently into the fire when he comes home from work these days, the shadows growing under his eyes.

When she’s sure none of the professors are looking their way- who knows what side any of them are on, really- she nods to Michael and feels, rather than sees, his slight smile.  
________________________________________________________________________________

Maisie’s mother says that the first rule of healing is “do no harm”. Maisie likes to think that she’ll make a good healer one day; she has her mother’s example and connections, an internship with Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing, her father’s reassuring height and breadth, and steady healer’s hands. Laney, on the other hand, is small and soft and breaks easily, her bones as fragile as a bird’s.

Despite that, if Laney could see what’s happening in Maisie’s (Defense Against the) Dark Arts class right now, surely she would be ablaze with anger as she often is, ready to burn the world down to fix an injustice. She should have been sorted into Gryffindor, Maisie thinks dazedly as red light streaks out of her wand only to fizzle ineffectively against the trembling first-year’s robes. Hufflepuff’s far too gentle for Laney.

“Again!” cries Alecto Carrow. Sparks bite at Maisie’s back, but she hardly notices. She raises her wand against the first-year girl again, trying not to see the way her hair frizzes like Laney’s in the spell-lit classroom, how her red tie has come slightly undone. 

Maisie tries to muster the necessary hatred and cruelty towards this little girl who so reminds her of her sister, tries to cast Cruciatus successfully as others have done so that she won’t be tortured herself, but her mother’s voice keeps getting in the way, whispering ‘do no harm’.

She manages to send the little Gryffindor girl sprawling on the ground, crying, before Carrow gives up on her and curses Maisie spinning with a flash of red light.  
________________________________________________________________________________

Maisie doesn’t notice at first, but sometime during the fall semester, first-years start disappearing. They go quietly, between classes or in the dark of night, and no one says anything about it. The Carrows get angrier and angrier as more students go missing, though, so Maisie supposes they’re somewhere safer than Hogwarts.

She starts to notice other things, too. The way Headmaster Snape hardly ever turns up to meals, and is silent and ghost-pale when he does. The way supplies go missing from the infirmary, bandages and potions and poultices. When she brings it up to Madam Pomfrey, the healer goes quiet before saying cheerily that Maisie must be mistaken. Maisie doesn’t mention the missing supplies up again, even though she knows she ought to report it to- who, exactly? Maisie doesn’t know anymore, so she files the report in her head among all the rest. 

She notices that even among the silence of the corridors these days, someone is always whispering. Students go off in twos and threes and don’t turn up until hours later, Michael Corner among them. Graffiti starts appearing on the walls, only to be hurriedly scrubbed away by Filch and the Carrows before Maisie can read it.

Given her abysmal performance in Dark Arts, it’s a miracle that Maisie never seems to get detention. She thinks her status as a prefect and her father’s position at the Ministry must be protecting her, and Lacey, too, since her sister is never conscripted as a target for lessons. Maisie’s grateful despite herself; she’s been working in the infirmary nearly every day since the start of term, mending broken bones and doling out dreamless sleep potions like butterbeer.

The infirmary is still the brightest part of Maisie’s life other than her sister, despite the miasma of pain and injury that hangs about the place these days. When she’s healing other people, Maisie can lose herself in the work and forget how afraid she so often is. She keeps her hair in a healer’s braid constantly now, and the skin of her hands starts to crack from how often she washes them to try and scrub away the blood she thinks is always on them. Her mantra of ‘do no harm’ and the relieved sighs of her patients as she eases their pain keeps her going.

Michael turns to her one night as they do their rounds of the castle, alone in the dark lit only by their wand-tips, and whispers, “Will you join the D.A.?”

Maisie startles and turns to face him, saying “What?” far too loudly in the silent corridor.

“Shhh!” Michael brandishes his wand toward a broom closet, and they swiftly pile in, holding their breath. No one comes through the corridor with curses on their lips. Maisie relaxes a little.

Michael stares at her seriously, his face lit from below in a menacing grimace of shadow.

“Will you join us? We could really use a healer.”

Maisie gapes at him, astounded. It makes sense, she thinks, that the one person I owe the most would ask the most of me. She starts to shake her head, but Michael says,

“Hannah told me that Lacey asked to join- we didn’t accept her!” he reassures Maisie hurriedly as she starts to snarl reflexively. “She wanted to be an informant, and really we should have let her, but we promised to watch out for her,” Michael reminds her, frowning.

Maisie considers him, heart pounding. Of course Lacey would try to make the most dangerous, most brave choice available to her. Sweet, righteous Lacey, who always brings their mother injured birds and mice their cats catch, who cries when bees sting her because she doesn’t want them to die.

She can’t let Lacey join Dumbledore’s Army. It’s far too dangerous, and what would she do if Lacey were caught? Fight her way through Snape and the Carrows, through the dozen students who were training to be Death Eaters already? 

So what choices are left to Maisie?

She tilts her chin up proudly, defiantly. Says, “I won’t.”

Michael’s face goes hard and he starts to raise his wand. Expecting her to call out or turn him in. Maisie grabs his wand arm and sends his first curse- a Stunning spell, by the color- into the wall of the cupboard.

He struggles, but Maisie shoves him up against the wall, using her body to keep his wand pointed away from her as her father taught her to do years ago. Michael makes to punch her with his other hand, but Maisie digs her wand into his throat and says breathlessly, “Stop. I’m not going to turn you in, you prat.”

They stay locked in struggle a moment longer before they break away from each other, panting. Maisie tucks some stray hairs back into her healer’s braid.

Michael asks, “Why not?”

Maisie glares. “I won’t join your stupid rebellion. I won’t let Lacey join, either. But!” she says over Michael’s protests, “I owe you. For Lacey. And I’m a healer- or I want to be,” she corrects herself. Maisie takes a deep breath. “I won’t h-hurt people. Like the Carrows want me to. And I won’t- turn you in. Bring me your wounded, and I’ll do my best to help. That’s what a healer would do.”

Maisie nods decisively. There. Now she’s not taking sides, not endangering herself or Lacey unduly, but still fulfilling her mother’s teachings. “Do no harm”- and help where you can.

Michael nods tersely, silently. Still upset, but accepting Maisie’s offer.

As they cautiously head back into the corridor, Maisie can’t help but think that she still owes him.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that Maisie knows that Michael and Abbott, at least, are part of Dumbledore’s Army, it’s easy to quietly observe other students and shuffle them into boxes in her head. Longbottom, Weasley, and Lovegood are definitely the ringleaders- didn’t they follow Potter to the Ministry almost two years ago? Some other Ravenclaws are part of it too, Maisie thinks- Anthony Goldstein, Padma Patil, Terry Boot, Sue Li. The other houses are harder, but Maisie thinks most of the Gryffindors are part of the D.A., and a good half of the Hufflepuffs. 

She doesn’t think any of the Slytherins have joined, but sometimes she thinks she sees Astoria Greengrass watching just as intently as Maisie does, and wonders.

The knowledge makes her uneasy. They haven’t asked anything of Maisie yet, and she’ll help like she promised if the time comes, but seeing invisible lines being drawn reminds Maisie that she has yet to really make a choice. Her immediate friends, at least, seem to be in the same position. What choice will they make? What choice will Maisie make?

She thinks again of the way her father looks these days, all grim lines and bruised eyes, the way dirt and maybe worse clings to the edges of his work robes. She sent a letter at the start of term telling her parents that Laney had been sorted into Hufflepuff, and received only a terse missive in response. 

Study hard, and do your duty. The letter said. Take care of your sister. Come home for Christmas break. Remember what we said at the start of term.

“Remember what we said”- that really meant “don’t take sides, keep your head down”.

“Do your duty” could mean several completely different things, Maisie is beginning to realize. Her duty to her family tells her to obey her father and keep her sister safe. So far, she’s done a lousy job of that, really, what with consorting with the D.A. and letting Laney do the same. Her duty to healing, a duty she shares with her mother and was learning from Madam Pomfrey, tells her to do no harm and to help others when she could. Maisie is starting to worry that she won't be able to fulfill both duties for much longer.

Maisie watches the other students, watches Madam Pomfrey become quieter and quieter, watches Laney become angrier and angrier, and worries that she’ll have to choose soon.  
________________________________________________________________________________

Laney makes her choice before Maisie does. It’s another sleepless night in the infirmary after Maisie’s rounds of the castle with Padma Patil. Maisie tends to restless students, checks bandages, and monitors a half-made nerve repairing potion in the storeroom.

We’re running out of supplies, Maisie thinks dully. Between Dumbledore’s Army stealing (or being given) medical supplies, and the constant need for dreamless sleep and nerve repairing potions among the students, the infirmary is beginning to be in dire need of potions ingredients and bandages. Maisie’s had to make several risky substitutions of less effective ingredients to keep up with demand, and they’re still running out fast. Madam Pomfrey is absent tonight, gone to Diagon Alley and further to find supplies, leaving Maisie in charge.

Her whispered name calls her to the door. Fifth-year Dennis Creevey, who no one has seen since nearly the start of term, pushes through and into the infirmary. Maisie hisses at him to go away. Creevey waves at her silently and pulls something shiny from his robes. A galleon.

He shoves it in her face, grimacing, and Maisie can just make out neat lettering around the edge. 

Corner caught. Runcorn trapped. Dungeon three. Hurry.

Maisie’s stomach drops. Dennis tugs at her robes, pulling her out the door, then breaks into a sprint. She follows, wand in hand. Laney trapped? Why is Laney out tonight?

They run all the way to the dungeons, where they nox their wands and silently creep around the corner to the entrance of dungeon three, where the Carrows run their detentions. The air of the corridor is damp and sticks to the inside of Maisie’s throat. Or maybe that’s just fear.

Maisie can barely see through the gloom, but she can just make out the shapes of the two Carrows, lugging someone between them and into the dungeon. Corner caught. So where’s Laney?

The iron door clangs shut, and Maisie and Dennis Creevey are alone in the corridor. She whispers, “Where?” but Dennis only shakes his head and cautiously makes his way down the corridor, past the dungeon and around another corner. Maisie can only follow.

Creevey stops short several meters from dungeon three and peers up, the tip of his wand barely lit. Someone’s eyes flash in the darkness high in the wall. Maisie chokes back a hysterical laugh. There, perched atop an unlit torch sconce, like the little bird she is, sits Laney. Runcorn trapped. 

At the sight of Maisie, Laney jumps. Maisie catches the little bird effortlessly, clutching Laney against her chest for a moment before setting her gently down. The three of them- two Runcorns and a Creevey, who would’ve thought- head off in the opposite direction from dungeon three. As they go, Maisie catches the edge of Michael’s first scream.

They don’t speak until they’ve made it back to the silent infirmary. Maisie hurriedly settles Laney and Dennis onto stools in the storeroom, and they watch quietly as she checks on her brewing potions. Still silent, Maisie checks over first Laney, then Dennis, healing small wounds- probably from climbing the dungeon wall- on her sister’s hands and knees. She stands over them both while they each drink a cup of tea.

Finally, Maisie sinks into the sole armchair beside the fire where the potions bubble merrily. She still feels the cold and damp of the dungeon despite the warmth of the fire. Michael’s scream echoes in her head.

“What,” Maisie has to take a breath before she can continue. “Were you doing down there?”

Laney glares over her teacup, frizzy hair nearly standing on end, dungeon grime on her cheek. “It was my job to watch the dungeon tonight,” she says.

Maisie stares. “Your what.”

Creevey clears his throat. “Laney’s an informant for the D.A.” he says quietly. “We always have someone watching dungeon three, so we know when someone gets taken.” He pauses. Maisie stays silent, mind reeling. So they did let Laney join, after all. I don’t owe Michael a thing, Maisie thinks viciously.

“Michael was running a mission tonight. I’m not going to say what,” Dennis says before Maisie can ask. “I don’t even know myself. But it was important, I think. Guess he failed.” Dennis starts as if he just remembered something and digs into his pocket for the fake galleon. He fiddles with it for a moment before slipping it back into hiding with a sigh.

Maisie manages to croak, “What happens now?”

Dennis sips at his tea. Laney looks from him to Maisie before saying, impatiently, “Someone has to save him, of course!” Maisie continues to glare at Dennis, who stares into his teacup with a grim expression.

Laney turns to Dennis, repeating, “Someone has to save him! Right, Dennis? Right?” Tears threaten to spill out of her eyes. “That’s what we do. We s-save people. Right?”

Dennis puts his cup down with a decisive clink. “There’s nothing we can do. I’ve informed the D.A. that we’re safe,” he continues as Laney’s face crumples, “and I’ll get you back to your common room safe and sound. There’s nothing we can do,” Dennis repeats sadly.

Maisie wants to hide her sister’s face in her arms and keep anything from putting that look on Laney’s face. But she can’t. They’re in this mess whether Maisie likes it or not. Maybe they’ve been in it since they stepped on the Hogwarts Express this year. She takes her sister’s hands in hers, shakes them to get Laney to look at her.

“Go with Dennis, Laney,” she says. Laney shakes her head, arguments on her lips. 

Maisie shakes their hands again, roughly. “Go with Dennis,” she commands. “Don’t get caught. If you’re going to do this, Laney,” she continues as Laney stares at her with wide, tearful eyes, “Don’t you dare get caught. Okay? You have to promise me.”

Laney swallows, smiling wetly. “I promise,” she whispers.

Maisie nods. “Good. And I promise, too.”

Dennis perks up. “Are you going to join us, Maisie?” 

She looks at him. Dennis Creevey is barely bigger than Laney, though he’s years older. And she’s suddenly reminded that Dennis and his brother, Colin, are muggle-born. They both disappeared at the start of term, but apparently, they never left the castle. They’re taking so much risk, all of them, and here Maisie is, cold by the infirmary fire, hiding behind her healer’s braid and steady hands.

But Maisie has a duty. To her family, and to her patients. If she’s caught, Madam Pomfrey will be the only healer left in Hogwarts, and the students will suffer. If she’s caught, Laney will be taken in for questioning, and then they’ll both be in trouble. Maisie thinks of how clever Laney was, to hide in plain sight like a little bird, perched on the wall with only a torch sconce to hold her weight. Maisie is almost as tall as their father, though only a fraction as broad. She can’t hope to hide like her smaller sister.

So she says, “No. I have to be here. If I get caught, there wouldn’t be anyone to heal you lot.” Dennis doesn’t seem to understand, she says, “I’m a healer. Not a fighter. And I can’t hide like Laney can. But I can be here, and you can bring your wounded to me. If they don’t kill him,” she continues, hating the way Laney’s breath hitches, “They’ll bring Michael here, after. And I’ll be here.”  
________________________________________________________________________________

They bring Michael to her the next morning. Madam Pomfrey is still gone, so it’s Maisie that takes Michael’s limp form into her arms when the Carrows knock on the infirmary door, Maisie that strips him down and washes the mess of his back where they whipped him. 

She has mixed feelings about the change in torture methods. On the one hand, whipping is messy and they’re out of poultice, so she has to spell water to snow and pile it on Michael’s burning back, but on the other they’re also out of nerve repairing potion and Cruciatus leaves as many invisible wounds as it does visible.

Maisie’s thankful that they at least have some pain numbing potions to give Michael, because when he wakes, he wakes screaming, and she has to cast a hurried silencing spell to keep him from disturbing the other patients.

During the three days it takes for Madam Pomfrey to return with supplies, Maisie never leaves the infirmary. At first the Carrows send another prefect to see why she isn’t attending their classes, but they leave her alone when they realize some of the students they send her way would die if she wasn’t there to treat them. Michael wakes for longer and longer each time, and she finds herself telling him stories about Laney to distract him from his injuries.

There’s the time Laney, only four years old, started making flowers bloom in the garden. She could hardly be coaxed to stop, even when using her magic exhausted her little body, because she ‘wanted the flowers to stay awake’. Then there’s the first time Laney was stung by a bee, again playing with the flowers. Laney had screamed but held very still because the bee’s sting was stuck in her finger, and the bee with it. When their mother tried to pull the sting out, Laney cried, “The bee! The bee!” until their mother consented to try and save it. It died anyway, and Laney held a little funeral for it and buried it under the flower bushes.

The stories make Michael laugh until the movement makes him cry. He tells Maisie stories in return, in the dark of night when everyone else is asleep and Maisie is still holding vigil over the wounded and the ever-bubbling potions. He tells her about joining the D.A. in their fifth year, the way Potter clenched his jaw and rolled his neck when he was frustrated, the way he calmly corrected students’ wand motions and grinned when someone successfully cast a spell. Michael told her how excited and proud he was the first time he cast his Patronus, a raven. 

How when Death Eaters invaded the school last spring the D.A.’s galleons called them to battle. How he wasn’t sure, but he thought he hit Orla Quirke’s father with a Stunning Spell.

Michael thanks her, once, for helping him. His words rub Maisie the wrong way, and she snaps, “I haven’t done anything.”

He wrinkles his nose at her, so she continues, “I’m a healer. I’m just doing my duty. You-“Maisie has to sit down on the edge of Michael’s bed, hard. “You helped my sister. Even though you let her join the D.A., you still helped her that night, didn’t you? She was the one who should have been caught.”

Michael doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he reaches out and pats her hand clumsily, pain racing across his features at the movement.

“I promised that I’d help her, didn’t I?” he says, smiling wryly. Maisie gets mad without really knowing why.

“And now I’ll never stop owing you,” she spits, making to stand, but Michael’s grip on her hand tightens suddenly.

“Is that what you think? That you owe me? Maisie,” he says, and she stills. It’s the first time he’s said her first name. “You don’t owe me anything, Maisie. You could have left me to die, and no one would have known. You- you’ve been sitting with me, keeping me company when there are other things you could be doing. Sleeping, for one,” he says in a rush.

“I’ve seen how hard you’ve been working here, and you were right, back then. In the broom cupboard,” he adds when Maisie frowns at him. “You’re a healer, and you already do all you can for us. You don’t owe anyone anything.”

Maisie privately disagrees. She’ll never stop owing Michael Corner, but she settles back down to tell him more stories regardless.  
_______________________________________________________________________________

Maisie isn’t sure what to think of Dumbledore’s Army at this point. She’s still frustrated with them and worried for Laney, still unsure of her place as the lines are drawn ever closer. Maisie knows she doesn’t even remotely support the Dark Lord and his dogs, but she’s still afraid. Afraid of getting caught, afraid of Laney getting hurt, afraid of the things their father brings home on his robes.

She’s proud of her sister, though. Laney is only eleven years old, and she’s already so strong. Stronger than Maisie’s steady healer’s hands, for sure. Some healer Maisie turned out to be. She hasn’t done anyone harm, but has she done enough to stop harm from coming from elsewhere? Maisie can’t shake the look on Laney’s face that night, the way Michael’s breath hitches as she helps him hobble across the infirmary.

So she keeps watching, marking students off in her mind, keeping track of who gets in trouble the most, who needs another dose of dreamless sleep, how many kids go missing. She keeps her head down and does what she’s told but she never, ever, stops watching.  
_____________________________________________________________________________   
By the time Madam Pomfrey comes back and Michael is able to leave the hospital wing at last, the Christmas hols are almost upon them. Every single student is set to go home, but Maisie thinks that she should stay and help prepare the hospital wing for the next term.

When she brings it up to Madam Pomfrey, she gets a stern look and a terse, “Don’t be silly, my dear,” in reply. Maisie doesn’t argue, just packs her bags and goes.

At home, things are strange. Her parents try to act like everything is fine, like there’s nothing to be afraid of, but Maisie and her sister know better. Silences are stilted, smiles are cold. Maisie knows her sister would love to tear into their father, accuse him of the things they both fear he’s being asked to do at the Ministry, but Laney’s promise holds her back.

They mustn’t be caught.

Maisie would love to ask her parents to keep Laney at home, but that would only bring suspicion on the lot of them. Instead, she asks to accompany her mother to St. Mungo’s and spends the holiday elbow-deep in the Traumatic Injuries Unit, where the healers remark on her steady hands and careful words. Maisie keeps quiet, pays attention, trying to learn all she can from the licensed healers. At mealtimes, she asks her mother about potions and remedies, which substitutions can be safely made and has she tried this yet?

Her mother answers the best she can, but increasingly the answer is “I don’t know, dear”, so Maisie finds books by owl-order and spends the time she isn’t at the hospital researching unorthodox healing practices. Frog liver can be substituted for boomslang skin, she learns, but only if the reaction between ingredients doesn’t burn a mint leaf… and on and on.

Laney spends the holiday getting quieter and quieter, angrier and angrier, until Maisie finds her practicing hexes on trees deep in their family’s forest. Maisie watches for a minute before she says, “Here, you need to flick your wrist more like this,” and demonstrates the proper move. Laney casts the hex again, leaving a triumphant star-shaped burn on the tree’s bark, and turns to Maisie, chest heaving and tears on her face.

“I thought you weren’t a fighter,” Laney says accusingly.

Maisie smiles. “I’m not. I’m a healer. But I’ve been in DADA for seven years now, I’ve picked up some things.”

Laney’s face contorts. “I can’t cast a lot of spells. The other D.A. kids, they know so much. They’re so strong. But I.” She sobs. “I can’t do it!”

Maisie smooths the tears off Laney’s cheeks, hushes her. “You can. Laney, your magic won’t let you do a lot of complicated spells yet. But you know what?” Laney shakes her head. 

“You can do charms. And a lot of charms have uses they don’t teach at Hogwarts. For example,” Maisie straightens and fluidly levitates a thick tree branch off the ground, high into the treetops, then drops it. It breaks into several pieces when it hits the ground. Laney stops crying.

“You’re smart, Laney. You’re just as strong as the rest of them. And what’s more, you’ve got heart. You’re a fighter. I.” Maisie swallows. “I don’t want you to fight. Not if you don’t have to. But… it’s good to be prepared. So, let’s practice, okay? We’ll learn together.”  
________________________________________________________________________________

The news comes to Maisie in whispers and injured students. On the way back to Hogwarts, Luna Lovegood and a few other students were taken off the train. No one knows where the Death Eaters took them. Meanwhile, the Carrows crack down on Hogwarts. The D.A. hardly runs any missions anymore, not since the Death Eaters started using whips and chains.

They still smuggle young students to safety, still disrupt detentions and sneak injured kids to the infirmary, but carefully, carefully. Nearly everyone has an informant these days, and while the lines have officially been drawn between the students and the Carrows, it’s hard to know who’s on which side.

Maisie has more patients than ever, and Madam Pomfrey takes up her quest to find alternative remedies with a will. They even conscript Professor Slughorn and his – questionable – ingredient sources, but it’s not nearly enough. Not with students turning up with scars and nightmares more and more every day.

As spring approaches, Madam Pomfrey urges Maisie to “go outside, you look like a ghoul!”, so Maisie takes her potions books to the courtyard in front of the Astronomy Tower. No one’s there, even though classes are out for the weekend, and eventually Maisie realizes that this is where Dumbledore’s body fell, where students and teachers alike raised their wands to banish the Dark Mark from the sky. Maisie looks up, up, up to the blank sky. 

She remembers that horrible night. Remembers waking in the dark to screams and cries and hurrying feet. Several members of her house sped off into the battle before Maisie could block the door, keeping her students safely inside, placing herself between them and the danger. Or so she thought. Would it have made a difference, she wonders now, if she had run off with Dumbledore’s Army to fight? Would it have changed anything?

Probably not. But now, when it’s not just a handful of Death Eaters threatening the school but the choking grip of the Dark Lord on all of wizarding Britain, now does it matter what she does?

Maisie knows she’s helpful in the hospital wing, knows there are students alive right now that wouldn’t be if she hadn’t dedicated herself to healing them this year, Michael Corner included. But training with Laney over winter break showed her that healing isn’t enough. Someone’s going to fight for all of them, and Laney will join the fight in a second.

Maisie can’t let that happen.

She stands, gathers her books, and heads for the library. Suddenly very calm where before she was terrified. Maisie still fears the Carrows, their curses and whips, still fears what will happen if Laney is caught, but something’s different now. She’s made a choice, even if she doesn’t know what form that choice will take when it’s time.

“Do no harm”. Well, Maisie is still a healer, but maybe she can be a fighter, too.  
________________________________________________________________________________

As McGonagall and Snape draw their wands to fight, Maisie swiftly folds her crowd of students against the wall. She scans the Hufflepuff crowd for Laney. Spells flash against stone, illuminating the pale faces of the students. There! Across the battle, tucked under Abbott’s arm. Safe.

The duel ends as quickly as it began, Snape flying away through the window like the great bat he is. The students all cheer, but even as Maisie raises her fists with the rest a cold ball of fright settles in her chest. Harry Potter is here. The Dark Lord must know, must be coming to claim Hogwarts. Maisie races across the Great Hall, crushes her little sister against her chest. There’s no way she can let Laney fight…!

McGonagall is speaking. Dimly, Maisie hears something about defenses, and sending students out through a tunnel to Hogsmeade. Perfect. She grasps Laney by the shoulders, meets her sister’s defiant eyes.

“We have to go, Laney,” Maisie starts, but her sister interrupts her. 

“No!” she cries, struggling in Maisie’s arms. “We have to fight! Look, all our friends are staying! We can’t leave them!”

It’s true. As Maisie watches, almost everyone they know- fellow prefects, her friends Michael and Lisa and Isobel, Abbott and Macmillan from Hufflepuff- shuffle over to the group staying to fight. A tussle breaks out as older students force everyone under fourteen to follow the Slytherins to safety.

“Look,” Maisie mutters to Laney, “McGonagall won’t let you stay, you’re too young. Go with Rebeccah and George, they’re waiting for you.” Lacey’s fellow first-years are loitering at the back of the leaving group, watching the Runcorn sisters anxiously.

Laney mutters a sullen “Fine,” and starts to pull Maisie towards them, but Maisie stops short and meets Michael Corner’s eyes across the hall. He’s standing at the edge of a group of Ravenclaws being sorted through by Professor Flitwick, students running off in twos and threes as they’re given orders. Her friend’s face is pale but determined, mouth set in the same defiant line she remembers from hours in the infirmary. In the crowded room, Maisie can just barely make out the way his hands tremble, both clasped tight around his wand.

Maisie turns back to her sister, carefully making her expression blank to mask her fear. Lacey takes after their mother, and Maisie has their father’s height; the first-year has to crane her neck to peer into Maisie’s face. Maisie closes her eyes and breathes deep. In the dark safety behind her eyelids, she sees her mother’s careful hands tending to patients, the way her father’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, hears her friends’ laughter as they master a new charm together, Lacey’s happy babbles when Maisie used to read to her when they were very small. Feels the same cloying fear and burning anger that she has every day this year treating injured, traumatized students in the hospital wing.

Maisie opens her eyes and breathes deep. In the bright danger of the Great Hall, she pushes her little sister into the small hands of Rebeccah and George, who come close to help pull Lacey away even as she starts to scream and cry.

Maisie breathes deep, and makes a choice.

“Goodbye.”

She turns on her heel, tucking a wisp of hair back into her healer’s braid, hands steady as she nods to Michael, grinning in the corner, and makes her way to Madam Pomfrey. Maisie looks into her mentor’s face and sees her own determination staring back at her. Madam Pomfrey calls to McGonagall, “Setting up infirmary here!” and waits for acknowledgement before snagging several passing students and running off to the hospital wing for supplies.

Maisie packs as much as she can carry into her school bag and robe pockets, directing the students to do the same. Potions, bandages, poultices, raw ingredients where needed, sheets from the beds, water buckets full of supplies to be levitated down to the Great Hall. She feels somewhat removed from the bustle, an odd buzzing in her ears.

As they hurry back to the Great Hall and begin to set up their field station, booms start to shake the foundations of the castle. Maisie glances out the open doors of the Hall and out the front of the castle, watches as the first attacks hit the castle’s defenses. She shudders.

Laney is safe. She left with the rest. Maisie notices Slughorn hurrying back into the Hall- he was the one sent to take the students out! She rushes over to him, asks “Did everyone get out?”

“Yes, yes,” Slughorn says hurriedly, eyes on the front doors and the rest of the professors.

“My sister! Laney, did you see her leave?” Slughorn’s beady eyes focus on her for a second, recognition sparking. They spent hours together in the infirmary this term, concocting unorthodox potions for healing.

“Yes…” the professor says, frowning. “Yes, I saw her go through. There was a prefect right behind her, they won’t let her come back.” He hurries off. Maisie wants to thank him, but they both have work to do.  
_______________________________________________________________________________

It’s a long night. Maisie spends most of it in the Great Hall, pulling wounded people- students, adults, even some from the other side, she thinks (those she makes sure are stunned before treating them)- in for healing spells and bandages. 

There’s some touch-and-go moments, like when giant spiders invade the front courtyard and Maisie has to rush forward with all the other humans, sides forgotten, to fend them off. Then she nearly takes a curse in the back from a masked Death Eater before Colin Creevey leaps forward to help her duel him.

The two of them trade curses with the Death Eater- Antonin Dolohov, she thinks when his mask comes off- and Maisie feels triumph surge in her chest when her stunning spell finally hits him square in his chest, knocking him off his feet. She pushes hair from her eyes and turns, grinning, to Colin, only to see him fall lit by sickly green light.

Maisie’s cry goes unheard as she kneels next to Colin’s body, shaking him. For all her time working with the sick and injured, she’s never seen someone die before.

Maisie wants to scream, wants to be sick, wants to find Dennis Creevey and babble apologies for not saving his brother when she owed Dennis for once saving her sister- but there’s no time. All Maisie can do is scoop up Colin’s camera- around his neck as always- and shove it safely away in her robes before she has to dodge a boulder thrown by a giant.  
_______________________________________________________________________________

Maisie hides away in the Great Hall, tending the wounded through the rest of the first wave and through the cease-fire. Colin Creevey’s isn’t the only death she sees that night. Lavender Brown, Professor Lupin, Fred Weasley, Lisa Turpin, friends and strangers, all lying cold and still. The wails of the injured and the grieving fill the air and still Maisie works. If she stops, more people die.

There’s a lull just before sunrise. Dimly, Maisie remembers Voldemort’s words. Give me Harry Potter. At this point, Maisie just wants everything to stop. With no one left needing immediate treatment, she takes a moment to wash her wands and tidy her healer’s braid. For the first time, she notices that some of the blood on her robes is her own. A long, jagged scratch runs down her stomach and thigh, bleeding sluggishly. Staring at it, Maisie suddenly remembers the last moments of the duel with Dolohov. A shout from Colin, a cold breeze against her side, then the stunning spell that took out the Death Eater.

This is the mark of the spell that killed Colin.

Maisie cleans and binds her own wound, a buzzing in her ears like a castle’s worth of bees. She sits quietly until everyone who can stand makes their way to the courtyard where Colin was murdered. 

Harry Potter is dead. 

And then he’s not, and there’s fighting again, and Maisie can’t she can’t but she has to, “do no harm” but she has no choice, trades light and fire with those who raise their wand against her. 

And then everyone’s watching Harry Potter face off against Voldemort, and Maisie is quietly breaking down in the crowd but it doesn’t matter because it’s over, it’s over and they’ve won and Maisie doesn’t know why but everyone’s cheering and she can’t. She just.

Can’t, yet.

So instead she tends more wounded, tends those wounds she didn’t bother with before when they were all about to die anyway. But now they’re all going to live and Maisie doesn’t know what that means yet so she doesn’t think about it, just tends the wounded until there’s no one left to tend and presses Colin’s camera into his crying brother’s hands and then sits down at last.

She’s still sitting there, just staring at her hands covered in grime and blood and shaking, her hands never shake but now they are and her hair’s coming out of its healer’s braid but who cares?

She’s still sitting there when Michael Corner sits next to her and takes her hands in his and just. Sits there. And finally, Maisie can breathe, can look up at Michael and rest her head on his shoulder and finally cry like she’s wanted to all night.

And he says, “Let’s go find Laney.”

And they do.


End file.
